Professor Brescia Appointed to Study Rail Safety in Albany

City of Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan '94 recently appointed Professor Ray Brescia as one of 15 members to a panel that will study rail safety in the city.

According to coverage by the Times Union, Mayor Sheehan said in her announcement, "We need to build on the positive momentum we’ve achieved from local and federal actions taken to date to improve rail safety. The unprecedented increase in rail traffic impacts everyone who lives, works, shops and drives near the tracks."

The panel also includes a number of elected officials, the Albany County sheriff, the executive director of the Albany Housing Authority, and city police and fire chiefs. Formed in response to a recent proposal to relocate residents who live near a rail yard that is seeing increased traffic from oil-bearing trains, the panel expects to deliver its report with recommendations by Sept. 2, 2014.

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At Albany Law School, Professor Brescia is also director of the Government Law Center. He specializes in housing policy, the legal ramifications of financial crises, community economic development and access to justice issues. He is an active and engaged scholar and is a resource to the media from across the country on these and other legal topics.

Before joining the Albany Law faculty in the fall of 2007, Professor Brescia was associate director of the Urban Justice Center in New York City, where he coordinated legal representation for community-based institutions in areas such as housing, economic justice, workers' rights, civil rights and environmental justice. He was also a law clerk to the late Constance Baker Motley, Senior United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Professor Brescia is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and the National Law Journal, among other outlets, and he maintains a blog, The Future of Change, that looks at the intersection of social innovation, social movements and social change.